Ideas online business

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Interswitch Verve and Naira Mastercard cardholders in Nigeria can now make payments on the Internet without much ado to procure the goods and services they would want to buy.
Naira MasterCard, InterSwitch Verve, Zenith Bank Mastercard Websurfer, and Zenith Bank Visa Prepaid Buxz cards are some of the most reliable payment cards you can use on the Internet today in Nigeria for your online transactions. But the Naira MasterCard and InterSwitch Verve debit cards stand out from the rest, not just because of the things you can achieve with them but also because they are cards you can easily obtain here in Nigeria without having to fork out that much from your pocket. You only need to open an account with some of our local banks here in Nigeria to obtain one.
What is Verve Card?
Verve card (from interswitchng.com) is your new InterSwitch (ATM) card now with chip and PIN. Verve is the new name of more secure, convenient InterSwitch (ATM) card that makes transactions safer and adds convenience to everyday life. Verve is issued by your bank and powered by InterSwitch.
Verve’s is the first and only chip accepted on all available payment channels in Nigeria. Using the Interswitch network, card holders can perform payment transactions on over 12,000 Point-Of-Sale (POS) terminals, over 7,000 Automated Teller Machines (ATM), and on web merchant sites, mobile phones as well as kiosks and much more!
16 banks issue Interswitch Verve cards in Nigeria: First Bank, Intercontinental Bank, ETB, Stanbic IBTC, Oceanic Bank, Unity Bank, Sterling Bank, Spring Bank. Others are: Wema Bank, Bank PHB, FCMB, Afribank, Fidelity Bank, Skye Bank, Ecobank and Finbank. According to ITREALMS ONLINE these 16 banks have issued over 10 million Verve cards to their customers (log onto http://www.itrealms.com.ng/2010/10/banks-record-over-10m-verve-card.html for more details).
About Interswitch
InterSwitch Limited is an electronic transaction switching and payment processing company with a business footprint that covers the provision of shared, integrated message broker solutions for financial transactions, e-commerce, telecoms value-added services and e-billing in the Nigerian environment.
The company is an independent, private sector led, Limited Liability Company (LLC) focused on facilitating the exchange of value between service providers (financial, telecommunications and utilities), merchants, their customers, and other stakeholders on a timely and continuous basis nationwide.
What is Naira MasterCard?
Naira MasterCard is a debit card denominated in Naira issued in partnership with MasterCard Inc. and banks like GTBank and FirstBank here in Nigeria. Naira Mastercard cardholders can use their cards to make payments online to procure products and services without having to drive through traffic to get to the bank nor join lengthy bank queues.
Banks like GTBank and FirstBank will let you have a Naira MasterCard ATM debit card when you open an account with them (Current or Savings account). Once this card is activated for Internet banking, you can use it for your online purchases and payments worldwide, anywhere you see the MasterCard logo on the Internet. You can use it to order for products online or pay for services. However, you have to activate it to start using it for online payments and purchases. To activate it, do the following (we will be using GTBank in this tutorial):
[1]. Go to any of their branches and ask to see the Customer Service people or the person in charge of card services. Tell them you want to apply for Internet Banking or want to be profiled for Internet Banking and would want to apply for a “Token”. A Token is a small security hardware like a key holder that generates a set of numbers which will enable secure transfers via the Internet banking platform. It generates a random password which will then be keyed in after the password to enable transfer. The use of Token is strongly recommended for the individual user. All customers that want to activate their Internet banking accounts are usually advised to request for a token to further secure their accounts from unauthorized transfers. The set of numbers generated should be entered when you are doing any transaction on these banks’ websites. Like I had earlier said, it is also required for the activation of your ATM card for online payments. The bank will debit N2,100 - N3,000 or so for the Token once you log into their site to activate it. You will get the Token device that very day (or they will ask you to come back for it another day) together with a PIN which you need to change in the process of activating your Internet Banking account on their site.
[2]. After getting your Token and Internet Banking details from the bank, go to their website e.g. www.gtbank.com to activate your ATM card for online payment. For you to know you are on a secure connection and not a cloned website ensure there is “https” is in your browser’s address bar when you login. Fraudsters and hackers can create phishing websites to deceive you into thinking you are on the real website, so always check to see if your spellings of their URL is correct and ensure that there is “https” in it whenever you are logged in, for example https://ibank.gtbank.com/ibank3/ . Now, click on "Login" under "Internet Banking" and then enter your Internet Banking account user details which should have been given to you in a sealed envelope at the bank or sent to your email address. Enter the login details and once inside your account, click on "Get Activation Code" button.
[3]. On the next page, follow the instructions provided and fill the form on the page. Select your card type (MasterCard) and enter the expiry date (which you will find on your ATM card e.g. 02/15 but enter the date without the slash ( /) sign e.g. 0215) and then press the little button on your Token. It should display some digits, type in those digits and click on the "Submit" button.
[4]. A code will be generated for you after clicking the Submit button. The generation of the code means your ATM card has been activated. Keep this online activation code away from anybody except yourself.
[5]. Your Naira MasterCard (ATM card) is now ready for making online payments anywhere you see the MasterCard secured logo on the Internet. The code generated will be required every time you want to make payment online with the card.
MAKING PAYMENTS WITH YOUR NAIRA MASTERCARD OR INTERSWITCH VERVE CARD
When making payments on any website that accepts these forms of Payment (i.e. either MasterCard or InterSwitch Verve), you will be required to fill in or enter your card details after clicking the "Order" or "Buy" button on the website:
• For ‘Card Type’ choose MasterCard or Verve.
• For ‘Card Holder's Name’, you are required to enter your name as it is written on your ATM card e.g. gasten volts imefi
• For your ‘Card Number’ use the long number on top of your ATM card, which is commonly 16 digit on most debit cards.
• For ‘Expiry Date’ enter the date as it is on your card; for example 02/16, but remove the slash (/) sign.
• For your ‘CVV Number’ enter the three-digit security code at the back of your card, for example 435. CVV OR CVV2means Card Verification Value.
• Confirm or complete the process and wholla that’s all!

Virtually all banks in Nigeria issue ATM debit cards but at the moment the GTBank Naira MasterCard, UBA Africard,Zenith Bank Mastercard Websurfer, and Zenith Bank Visa Prepaid Buxz cards are some of the most reliable payment cards you can use on the Internet for your online transactions here in Nigeria to make payments worldwide. The Fidelity Bank debit card which the bank offers to its customers who have at least a Savings Account with them is also reported to be a good online payment option.
GTBank will let you have a Naira MasterCard ATM debit card when you open an account with them (Current or Savings Account). You can start using the card for your international online transactions by going to any branch of the bank to activate the card for Internet banking, you will be able to use it for your online purchases and payments worldwide, anywhere you see the MasterCard logo on the Internet. Just go to any GTBank branch and ask to see the Customer Service people or the person in charge of card services. Tell them you want to apply for “Internet Banking” or want to be profiled for Internet Banking and would want to apply for a “Token”. A Token is a small security hardware like a key holder that generates a set of numbers which will enable secure transfers via the Internet banking platform. It generates a random password which will then be keyed in after the password to enable transfer. You can use the GTBank Naira MasterCard to order for products online or pay for services anywhere on the Internet wherever you see the MasterCard logo.
For now, let me concentrate on the easiest of them to get – the UBA Visa Prepaid card, called UBA Africard, issued by United Bank of Africa (UBA). The UBA Africard is one card you would want to consider and virtually the easiest to obtain. The UBA Visa Prepaid card (Africard) is a debit card variant denominated in Naira and is pre-funded and re-loadable. It is internationally accepted in all Visa acceptance points (ATM, PoS & Web). Card holders do not need to have an account with UBA in order to obtain this card, and the card can be obtained from any branch of UBA. The card is of two types; the personalized and the non-personalized types. I will advise you to go for the non-personalized type because you can instantly obtain it just immediately after applying for it.
All you need to apply for the UBA Africard is a valid form of identity, particularly a government-issued ID, which could be an international passport, driver's license or National Identity Card, or even the Voter’s Registration Card (in line with the new CBN directive).
You need a minimum of N500 (five hundred naira) to obtain this UBA Africard prepaid card, although in some cases you can get it even without paying a dime.
This card has a 10 digit number on it. This number serves as your account number. To fund the card, simple pay into the account number at the counter.
NOTE: Although the aforementioned cards are widely accepted online, you cannot use them to effect payment on some sites on the Internet. Some sites may reject them while some do not have provisions for accepting them. For example, Clickbank products cannot be procured using most Nigerian prepaid card. Most Clickbank products require a PayPal login before you can buy products on the site, so your Nigerian prepaid card will not be useful to you on www.clickbank.com. However, so many other sites, particularly the China based B2B sites like Aliexpress.com and DHgate.com will accept the card. You can also use these cards to make online payments for your web hosting service with Hostgator.com; domain name service with Namecheap.com or GoDaddy.com; autoresponder service with TrafficWave.net, Getresponse.com, Aweber.com. To cap it all, you can use these cards on many websites that accept the usual Visa and MasterCard. You can use them on websites like Amazon.com, Namecheap.com, Getresponse.com, Aweber.com, Aliexpress.com (to order PCs, tablets and other electronic gadgets from China), and DHgate.com (to purchase electronics, PCs, tablets, computer accessories, cell phones and accessories, jewelleries, handbags, clothes and so on from China) and Web4africa.net (to buy domain name and webhosting).

Thursday, 26 May 2011

Twitter is a social networking that is dedicated to news, views and current information almost on a second by second basis. Social networking sites really gained momentum when people felt they had to speak out against perceived injustice or make something known to the wider society.

With the popularity of twitter as a social networking site, a lot of people continue to register and use the site on daily basis. This boils down to the fact a lot of people are searching for relevant news and update about businesses and could use this medium which is free, to tell the world about their businesses.

On registration with tweeter you could make friends with have the same niche as you have or simply just make friends generally; you can promote your website or blog on tweeter. When you have a great post on your website or blog about a particular event, new product or something you wish to promote or let the wider world know about, you simply about it i your post and in other tweets make sure you tweet on your followings too so that you can leave your link back to websites or blog it could bring a lot of people to your site who want what you have just let them known about, the good part of this is that your tweets maybe re-tweeted to their friends and that means more traffic to your blog or websites. All you simply need to do is to continue to tweet and leave your back links.
Also you can check my “money making ideas on FaceBook”

Thursday, 28 April 2011

Friday, 25 March 2011

If you have a website or a blog, you should definitely sign up for Google Adsense. It’s one of the few programs you can truly ‘set and forget’ – once it’s there you don’t really need to do much else with it.
But there are ways and means to maximize your income from Google Adsense, and as you get to know more about it you can start to generate a decent income from it that will keep rolling in month after month. It’s a true passive income, which is why so many people are using it.
Most people have heard of Google Adsense, but not everyone understands exactly how to use it to its best advantage. So we’ll start with how to use it in its most basic sense and then progress to the more advanced benefits you can get from the program.
Basically if you have a website or blog you can sign up for a free account at Google Adsense and start putting contextual ads on your website. What do I mean by contextual? It means quite simply that the ads which appear on your site will be relevant to your content. So let’s say for example that your website is about tropical fish. The Google ads will then be related to tropical fish in some way. And because of the information that you give to Google, they will also display adverts that are relevant to your area. So if you are based in the UK the ads that appear will be relevant to UK buyers; if your site or business is based in Australia the ads will appeal to Australian buyers.
All of this is carefully worked out for you in order to attract the maximum click through possible for your website and your ads. Every time someone clicks on an ad you will get a few cents into your Adsense account, so it makes sense that the more attractive and relevant your ads are to your visitors, the more money you will make.
Let’s have a look at the appearance of your ads now, since this can affect the amount of click throughs you get. You can choose the color and borders of your ads to fit right in with the color scheme on your site if you wish, but it’s worth experimenting with having no borders at all around your adverts since this makes them blend in with your content more seamlessly and may encourage more click throughs in a subtle but effective manner.
However well you integrate Google Adsense into your current blog or website though, there is obviously a limit to the amount of money you can make from one site. If you get thousands of people visiting your site every day then you can expect to get a good income from it but many people don’t get this number of visitors and that’s where you need a separate strategy to try and up your numbers.
In this case you can go to the advanced level of Adsense income and think about starting several sites, all based around a different yet popular subject. You should think of these essentially as being content sites, since they are often chock full of articles and useful content which is carefully keyworded to attract plenty of search engine traffic on that particular subject. The Adsense ads are then placed in the optimum positions to achieve the best click through (the Adsense pages will give you ideas on where to position them but it’s worth experimenting to see what works best for you), and the site goes live for people to find and read through.
You can also insert affiliate links for products into these sites in order to gain even more income if you wish, but they are often known as Adsense sites simply because they are set up to attract visitors and click throughs on a specific subject.
Some people end up with dozens of sites like this, and the beauty of them is that once they are built and you have bought your domain name and hosting plan you don’t really need to do too much with them except for promote them. Updating them fairly regularly is good if you want to get to a higher position in the search engine results though, which will gain you more visitors as a result.
You can also keep your site updated more regularly (and encourage repeat visitors) by inserting RSS feeds of news stories related to the subject of your website. Anything that will get people returning to read more – and possibly click on more ads as a result – is worth a try.
One final note here – choose the subjects of your Adsense sites wisely. It’s tempting to go for whatever is in the news at the moment, but once the stories die down so will your traffic. You want something that people will always want to know about – saving money, getting a better job, earning more, and various other more personal subjects such as skin care and successful dating for example. There are plenty of options to choose from; you just need to get your thinking cap on to find them.
In short the best place to start making money from Google Adsense is to integrate it into your existing website or blog. As you gain experience and discover the best ways to use it you can start thinking about adding extra sites into the mix. You might end up being an Adsense guru and raking in plenty of money for very little work indeed. That’s the best thing about it – the ‘set and forget’ benefit that keeps on working even when you’re not.
You can leave your comment if you feel strongly about this article.

Electronic books (ebook) are big business online. No matter what you search for there will be someone out there selling an e-book on it.
But the best thing about them is that they provide one of the most potentially lucrative businesses you could ever hope to start online. So long as you do your homework and don’t try and cut corners you can start making inroads into this business within days of deciding to get started. There is plenty to learn but none of it is beyond you – and even if you don’t think you’re up to the job there are plenty of people you can call on to help you.
If you’re thinking of selling e-books to make money online, your best bet is to write your own.
But why do that when there are plenty of affiliates e-books around that you can promote and earn a cut from?The answer is simple. If you write and create your own e-book no one else will be selling anything quite like it. You’ve got a unique product that will draw attention since no one will have seen it before. As long as you do your research first, you could make a lot of money from one e-book alone.So first things first when and how do you decide on what to write in an e-book and how can you convert your documents into ebooks?
Think about what subjects are currently popular online. Making money will always be a great subject (look at this blog for example!) so anything that taps into this field which doesn’t cover the same ground as loads of other e-books could do well. Try and focus on a specific niche to get the best results; you could start by thinking about what you personally find interesting and see whether any of your hobbies might provide fertile ground to explore.
Once you’ve got some ideas see whether there are already any e-books doing well online on that subject. If there don’t seem to be any around you’ll need to dig a bit further to see if your subject is going to be popular enough to attract a lot of sales. A spot of keyword research and simply looking up related search terms on Google can help reveal the answer to this.Okay – so let’s assume you now have an idea for an e-book you think will be popular. Next up you have to plan the contents and think of a great title. Titles are very important since they will give the potential buyer an idea of what to expect from the e-book itself. It needs to be specific and intriguing – and full of promise. Don’t worry if one doesn’t occur to you straightaway; quite often you will only think of it once the book is almost written.
The biggest problem when it comes to writing the book itself is staying on topic. It’s very easy to veer off course if you’re not careful, which is why having a pre-written outline to follow will keep you on track. If you plan this out before you begin writing you’ll find the whole process much easier to manage. If you don’t feel confident enough to write it yourself you can hire a ghostwriter to do it for you; there are plenty of sites online where you can hire a freelancer for a fixed fee that you decide on. This gives you complete control over the project.Incidentally the word ‘e-book’ can be somewhat misleading for newbies to the business. An e-book can indeed be a hundred pages or more long, but it can also be no more than a dozen pages or so. The price for a shorter e-book will of course be lower, but it is still more than you might think given the length of the book itself.Of course you need to think about more than just the e-book if you want to sell plenty of copies of it. You need to get the word out, and you need to have a great mini website to show it off. These mini websites are really single page sites which promote your e-book in a long sales letter. You would do well to spend as much time writing the sales letter as you did the e-book itself, since it has a very important job to do.
First off you need a stunning headline that will grab the attention. You need to really sell this to everyone who lands on your website so don’t be afraid to shout about the benefits of your e-book! You’ll notice I said benefits there and not features; that’s because the benefits will tell your readers what your book will do for them. That’s a very important point to understand since it could make the difference between getting a reasonable amount of sales and being buried under an avalanche of them!
Think about your price carefully too. Don’t be greedy – but at the same time don’t go too low either. You want to give an impression of quality. Do some research and see what similar titles in your subject area are selling for.You can also sell more copies by offering bonuses along with the e-book itself. Could you write a number of special reports as well, each one a few pages long, which relate to the subject of your main book? Anything like this will encourage still more people to buy from you rather than going elsewhere for a similar title.
The ultimate goal for you should be to write a series of e-books which each have their own website to sell from. When you write each sales letter be sure to include plenty of keywords and phrases to attract a greater volume of search engine traffic to your site. Pick a good and relevant domain name too – it will help to draw in more people.The hardest step is in writing that first e-book. Once you’ve got going and you’ve had some experience you’ll start writing them faster, picking better titles and subjects, and selling more copies as a result. Before you know it you’ll have a great business on your hands.
If you’d like to comment on this piece, please leave your message using the form below. Then get writing – your first e-book is there, you just have to get it out.